Prehistoric Fauna

Many large mammals are depicted in the rock paintings and engravings of Western Sahara. While some of these are capable of living in an arid environment such as that pertaining today in the region, many require much wetter conditions.

The highly naturalistic style of many of the paintings and engravings enables us to identify a number of species and infer past environmental conditions from these species' habitat requirements, based on their existing or historical ranges.

The density of rock art, and the accurate representation of animal species, strongly suggests that these animals were observed in situ by prehistoric peoples, in the areas in which the rock art is found.

Species identification by Maria Guagnin .

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items are from between 17 Mar 2005 & 24 Nov 2006.